Monday, January 30, 2012

4Runner stuff

We still have not started our trip yet. We will know by tomorrow if we are staying any longer where we are now. If we don't hear anything tomorrow then it's off we go within about 3 weeks. Reguardless we need to finish things in the MH. Playing has been fun but it's time to work now.
We looked under the hood of the 4Runner the other day and realized that when someone had replaced a section of fuel line they let it kink up. Wrong thing to do so Thom had to go down to Pep Boys (closest auto store) and get a new section of fuel hose to put there. He also got new clamps to hold it in place and put a clamp in the area where it had kinked before so that it would not go and rekink. The kink was blocking the fuel from getting to the engine properly. Yes, we traded a 2005 PT cruiser in for a 1995 4Runner. The car had 95,000 miles on it and the 4Runner has just over 200,000. It actually runs very well still. What few problems there are Thom can fix and prevent any others.
The 4Runner with it being stick and 4x4 will allow us to tow it 4 wheels down with out needing a dolly or trailer behind the MH. If you are thinking about towing 4 down there are few things to think about.
1 Base Plate - The base plate for the vehicle can be several thousand dollars depending on brand and vehicle.
2 Brakes - Yes you are required to add a braking system to the trailer or tow vehicle which can be just a few dollars to several hundred depending on how good of a system you want to add
3 Tow Hitch - The piece can usually be reused if you trade off the old vehicle for a new but it still can cost several hundred and up
4 Accesories - There are other things like chains and locks that you would need too. This is probably the cheapest part.
Not all vehicles can be towed 4 down. If yours cannot and you don't want to trade for a different one there are things you can do that should make it 4 down towable. First thing is to contact Remco Manufacturing (http://www.remcotowing.com/) to see if you might need a pump for your transmission. Double check the owner's manuels to see what the manufacturers recommend. You can also check http://www.motorhomemagazine.com/ and check out their Dinghy Towing Guides, they have them from the current year on back to 2002 right now for free. Each year is a very large PDF file. Don't try to print all of anyone year. They are lots of pages with advertisements and pictures that use alot of ink. They have really tried to have all the information for every vehicle that can be towed 4 down available in one spot.
If you wanted to take a motorcycle and car with you too there are several ways to do that.
One is to use one of these http://www.cruiserlift.com/index.html but as you can see those can be quite expensive. Depending on what the weight of your bike is it can be upwards of $5,000 or more.
The second thing to take a bike and car along with you is one of these http://www.racecityrvproducts.com/ but again the price can be upto something like $10,000 if you went with all the bells and whistles.
Or you could get a large enough flatbed or enclosed trailer. They can be as cheap as $2,500 and up. It all depends on if you catch them on sale and stuff.
We are probably getting a flatbed at this point even thou the 4Runner could be towed 4 down. The MH can tow the weight and it gives us some room for the poles for the rather large tent that we also have. The tent has 7ft walls, it is a 12 ft x 18 ft Panther Primative tent ( http://www.pantherlodges.com/ ). The ceiling is 12 ft inside. Yep a large tent but when you doing things like mountain man rendezvous's you need a period tent to camp there. Our favorite one so far that we have done is Alafia River Rendezvous ( http://www.floridafrontiersmen.org/index.htm )

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Free or cheap camping sites page added

I am adding a new page on free (or cheap) campsites. I hope you enjoy it.

If the fixes to the Suburban heater actually fixes it then it only has taken about $50 - $75 to fix it. Of course it has taken about 4 or 5 hrs so far but consider the cost of a new one and if this works I don't mind the time involved. We put it back together and will test it out tonight before adding in gaskets and stuff like that. We needed to replace the bushings. Thom took the bushings from a ball bearing set that were the size we needed and changed them out. He did some other small fixes with some steel reinforced epoxy putty. (Thom has the training and knowledge to work on electrical and mechanical things. Unless you have some experience you may want to pay for someone to do some of the repairs.) To really test thou, we have to get it installed back into in the MH. We still need to replace the regulator for the propane tank before that.
With our long drive coming up soon we need to stop putting off a few things and just spend a couple of weekends and finish them up. Sometimes thou you just feel like playing and putting off the work, lol.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

More things done and still to do

Still haven't gotten a regulator for the propane tank on the MH, of course we haven't looked too hard. We know where we need to go we just have not gone yet. LOL
We did figure out the problem with the back up lights for the 4Runner. We changed out the light bulbs since that's usually the part the goes first. We did change out the back up switch which we found out was not the problem. Thom then started tracing the wires to see if there was a break in them or if the ground was no longer grounded. While the vehicle was on he was working on checking voltage and went to pull the light bulb out and it started to work. Hmmmm it seems that the connections inside for the bulb were very loose. Fixed that and put it all back together and it works.
Since we are about to leave where we are at, we started to pack up the MH for the trip. We used to do a lot of medieval, renaissance and pirate festivals. So we have lots of clothes still for it. There does not seem to be too many places for the next month for us to wear them so we packed those up first. The winter clothes that are good for places like MI or NY went into storage for now too.
We are almost over whatever cold we picked up. Just a little sinus stuff left. We are going to get the tattoo on my left upper arm finished up tonight. Just adding some highlights and white in some areas. Thom is getting one of his touched up tonight too. He may get 2 of them touched up, we will see when the time gets here. No telling how busy Mike will be or how long he will take on doing them. He's very good and takes his time to make sure of things. Tattoo's are almost permanent. You can get them removed but from what I understand that process is way more painful than getting one in the first place. There are a few “rules” with tattoos that people should always follow to make sure you don't regret one. First and foremost – No Names!!!! The only exceptions would be your own kids and parents. That's it, no other names. I have seen too many people regret getting any other names put on their bodies. Second is to always think about exactly what you want and where you want it at. Take some time to really figure it out. People get them on the spur of the moment and then regret where they put it or what they picked.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Just a few things

I know it's almost been a week since I wrote anything but with Thom finally almost over his cold and then I got it and still got some of the sinus part, we have not done much to the MH.
We did sell our truck, traded the PT Cruiser in for a 4Runner. We will be setting the MH up to 4 down tow the 4Runner and put the bike on the back of the MH. We may get a trailer first thou to just tow them behind the MH. It depends on cost right now. The lift for the bike would be about $5k to $6k to do it right. The towing for the 4Runner would also be at least $2k to $3k. But a trailer could be $1k, so right now the trailer would be the best course.
We have replaced most of the lights on the 4Runner and working on finding out why the back-up lights are not coming on.
Starting to pack up the place we are staying at and loading up the MH. Things like are Faire clothes since there are not any faires in the next little while we can put them away. We will be leaving here and taking a very long trip shortly. I will post where we have been after we have been there. Not sure about all the stops yet so I cannot post the route :)
Gascap keeps trying to get in his cage. LOL He knows if he gets in there that he gets to take a trip. I think he is wanting to get back on the road. He still loves his squirrel, alot. You would think he would get tired of his friend but nope.
I did put a list of the games that we have with us right now. There are board games, dice games and card games on there. If you ever see us out and about or even at the MH playing and are curious on how to play, please ask us. We are more than happy to teach people how to play all kinds of games. I think I have well over 50 different games, and no I don't have Monopoly. Most of the games are ones that are easy to set up and play. Most can be played for less 1/2 an hour, which makes it nice if you don't have a few hours for a game. We do take some of them into bars, lol.
It's funny but there are lots of people that visit the blog but so far no one has left a comment. I have people that have told me on Skype or in person how much they like it but no ones left a written comment yet. EDIT: I just looked and realized that comments could not be left unless you subscribed to the blog. Since I will not make people subscribe if they just want to look I changed it so that anyone can leave one. Here's to hoping that not much spam gets thru :)
If there is anything you want to know please do not hesitate to ask. If I don't know the answer I will try to find it for you.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Saturdays fixes

I know it's been a few days but not much has happened except that we both got a cold. We did go to the MH / RV yesterday and do some repairs.
1st Thom looked at where the heater is supposed to go to see if there were any other glaring problems. Closed up some holes that should have been closed when they took it out for repairs so that no animals could get in.
2nd Looked at the stove and took it apart just to make sure there no other problems besides the propane not making it there. Then double checked the propane tank. It seems we may need a new regulator. They do not seem to carry the size of regulator that we need at a home improvement store. We will either have to go to a gas company type place or an RV store. Anytime RV gets put on something the price jumps 2x or 3x more than any other place, so look every where else before going to one.
I have been asked about the "purple wires" that seemed to cut the gauges and other electrical off from working so here is a picture of them and if you have a coach similar you should recoganize where they are at. Those 2 wires caused quite a problem before our trip to Vegas, lol.





After we looked at a few other things we then put back on the SunGuard shades that go over the hugh front window, the 2 side windows and the windshield wipers. When we bought it we found them in one of the bays, the previous owners had never used them. They keep a better job of the sun doing damage to the inside and the windshield wipers than just the curtains. From what I can find they cost $250 - $300.



After we finished over at the MH we came back to the house and had some dinner and then played some Guild Wars. We finally finished the Vizunah Square mission. In that one you have to keep 2 other people alive. Pain in the but when 1 of them keeps trying to things that get him killed, lol. We finally did it thou.
We are going to go hiking today with the same friend that is in town. He's only getting one day a week off while out here so we are making sure he is not just sitting or sleeping :)
I am going to post some other pictures of the inside of the MH today.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

E-Readers and todays stuff

I looked at several ways to lessen the weight of books while traveling and to have all of my books with me at the same time. I decided that we have PC's, a laptop, and cell phones with data plans for going on the internet. I really did not want a tablet just an e-reader. Next was to decide which one. There are several on the market. Nook and Kindle are just 2 of many on the market ( E Readers ).
I looked and compared lots of them and decided that a Kindle would be the best for me. We looked online thru the different stores that sell them, ebay, craigslist, etc. I thing to mention about Thom, he likes to shop and likes to make sure he is getting a good deal so we looked for several months. We eventually found a Kindle with 3G+wifi and no ads on it. They regularily go for $189. We got it from Craigslist with the Lighted Leather Cover and 2 cords to charge with it. The person had not used it much and then decided she wanted a Nook colour instead so was selling her Kindle. We got it for $125. I don't read alot of magazines nor do I want to so was not interested in the Nook colour. I like books more.
I go onto the Amazon site and look for books and decide which ones I want from there and when I want to download them to the Kindle I just turn on the internet then from the device. As soon as I am done downloading I turn off the wi-fi / 3g. Saves me from charging it too often. There have been reports that if you use the light portion of the cover than it drains the battery, I have not noticed that it drains it all that fast. But then again I am not reading more than an hour at a time with the light on. I charge the Kindle about once a week or so.
Unless you have one of the very first Kindles then yes you can put, and read, PDFs on there. If you have other books that are not in the format for Kindle on your computer, there is a conversion program that is free you can download to convert them and then move them over to the Kindle. It should take less than 5 mins from start to finish. On the model I have I can also get audiobooks on it. Makes it nice to just download one for a trip instead of just getting what a store might have.
Thom has been reading from his phone and sees how much I am enjoying my Kindle and we are now going to get one for him. I have the white version of the Kindle with the red cover, it looks like Thom is going to get the black one with the black cover.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Weekend stuff

We have a friend that is now working about an hour from us so we spent the weekend doing things with him. Picked him up Saturday night and then drove back here. Him and Thom enjoyed a few drinks at the apartment. We played some on the computer playing Guild Wars. All 3 of us play the game. GW is a MMO type of game. Once you buy it there are no more fees.
Sunday we went to Crazy Otto's and got one of their "Build Your Own" omelets. After that we stopped off at some stores and did some shopping. We then went by the MH to show it off. I did take some pictures of the voltage regulator. I have had some questions of where and how, lol.

This the left side of the engine compartment. The voltage regulator is a little box like thing in the picture. Hard to see in this picture but we zip tied the plug to stay plugged into the voltage regulator.

Here is a close up of the voltage regulator. As you can see the zip tie that is holding the plug for the VR plugged in. We will make a more permanant fix but this did get us back on the road over the New Years Eve holiday.
After we left the MH we then went geocaching for a few hours. We found some while on the way to take our friend back to where he's staying. Talked about seeing if he could get more than a day off next time and we would take a couple of days and take the MH off to Vegas again. Not sure if he can get a whole weekend off. I hope so, he needs to just take a few days and do nothing constructive. Everyone needs time off to recharge and one day is just not enough time when you are working at least 12 hrs a day and your day is 4pm to 4am.
If our friend had not come over to this side of the country to do some work we would have worked on the stove, replaced 2 outlets in the bedroom. When we went to plug the heated mattress pad in they were very loose so we are going to replace the outlets instead of messing up the plugs on the pad.
And while we were there with our friend I forgot to take other pictures of the inside :)

Friday, January 6, 2012

Things to still work on

Well since we had not really taken her out for a trip since we bought her, we took her out over the holiday. We have found several other things to work on to fix.

When we bought her the last owners had said that they could not get the stove to spark but since they ate out alot they never thought to fix it. Fixing the spark problem was no real problem but the thing that we never checked (and yes we are laughing and kicking ourselves) is the propane does not seem to go from the tank to the stove. We know the propane has been on for the fridge while we were on the first trip to the Grand Canyon and then to the spot where it's at now so we have to check it just for the stove. Since we were plugged in over the weekend we just turned the tank of propane off since it was not working in part of it.
We know that one of the air bags is not holding the air that it should so we need to find the part number and change it out. They may still be the original air bags so if thats the case we may just change out all 4 to be safe.

We have an ice maker on the fridge at the S&B (sticks and bricks = house) and where we are at now there is no ice maker. You don't realize how much ice you use, or like to use, until you no longer have access to unlimited ice. There is a rather large ice maker in the MH which we have been letting cycle thru to see whats in the lines, if anything. The last owners never used it they said. Even after several days of cycling water thru the lines there are still black things in the ice. Thom thinks that we may have to replace the lines and do some rebuilding of it. We want it to work, lol.
The Suburban heater parts were in a box so we knew that was of course not working. There is another heater in the MH so if we need to replace this one we have something to fall back on till its done.
Yes I know it seems like there are things that would make some people walk from getting an older MH / RV but as you see some of these things just have not worked for a while and was not a problem for the last owners. We happen to want everything that should be working to actually work and work right so we are spending the time to get it right before taking off cross country. Even if you buy a brand new one you will still have things that are not working right. Alot know that they will still spend up to 6 months working out the bugs and going back for service. The only difference between the new and old is how much money to spend.
Depending on what you want in size, gas or diesel, slides or none, floorplan, etc is how much you will spend. We wanted a DP (diesel pusher) instead of gas, no slides and even thou we tried to stay under 40 ft ours is 40 ft. A new 40 ft DP also depends on the maker, ours brand new back in 1993 was over $200k. No we did not pay that and it was way less for us. Money wise we have not put lots in because we are doing all (or most) of the work ourselves so no labor costs for us right now. Thom also knows motors and electrical stuff so that helps in figuring things out. So for us an older DP was the best choice. Doing the work ourselves also helps in knowing when and if something is starting to go wrong and a better idea of the problem to fix it.
(Yes I know these pics are on the small size. I will take new ones and put them up soon of the interior)

Wednesday, January 4, 2012


Here is a picture of our RV/ MH. It is a 1993 Monaco Signature Series Crown Royale. It was made with a side aisle instead of a middle aisle. That means that you can not look all the way down the coach to the bedroom area. There are no slides and with all the problems we have read about people having with the slides (so far) we are happy with the floorplan. Maybe one day we might want bigger but for right now we are very happy with her. She is 40 ft long and about 13 ft tall. We filled her up completly with fuel and then had her weighed. With no water in the tank and not filled with our belongings yet she weighs around 3100 lbs. Right now there is no satilite TV and with the amount of TV watching we do, I doubt that Thom and I will get a dish. Internet on the other hand is a little more important to us so I think we will be getting satilite internet. That is not cheap so while we want that we will be planning for that. So far she has only 1 solar panel and soon she will have more. We are gonna work towards being totally independent from hooking up as much as possible and we would like to do without a generator running if we can help it.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Our New Years Eve trip to Las Vegas, NV

Well, we had been doing some work on the RV for the last week. Re-tightening some grounds, replacing some relay's and the like. Found some purple wires underneath that if they are not together will make the dashboard not work, lol.
We made a quick decision on Dec 30th to go ahead and head to Vegas if they had a spot for our rig to pull thru (the backup camera and monitor is not working very well). They had a spot for the 31st and the 1st so first thing the 31st we hurried to pack up clothes and Gascap to take the 4 hr trip.
Finally started down the road at about 2 pm. The volt gauge and tach gauge has jumped about since we got her so we were not that worried. We finally got the ABS light to go out. We both think it's cause we fixed the Bendix Cruise Control. With all the traffic the trip is longer than 4 hrs so about when we have to put the head lights on we notice the volts drop. If the chassis batteries don't hold a charge the MH does not move. Then all of a sudden we drop way down and limp it about 8 miles to a rest area. Of course by now we are thinking we may need a new alternator. We knew the voltage regulator had been replaced about a year earlier. Thought we may have to cancel the Circus Circus RV Park reservations and as a matter of fact we did after a little while sitting in the rest area. Knowing it's New Years Eve we knew it would be next to impossible to get any towing or parts delivered.
Thom and I started pulling out the electrical drawings and books to see what we might be able to do to limp it somewhere other than a rest area. As we were looking at the engine, Thom was pointing out the different parts of the engine, where the alternator and voltage regulator (VR) was and all. As he pointed out the VR we noticed the plug for the VR was not really staying plugged in. We both looked at it and each other and thought it can't be this easy to fix. Well Thom used the can of air to blow out the connectors and then used some QD Contact Cleaner to clean out the dirt and dust. Then he used some zip ties to keep the plug plugged in. We had the generator going to hopefully charge the chassis along with the house batteries. We let it charge for a little while then started the MH. Low and behold they were charging and staying charged!!!! If he stepped on the gas the volts went up and stayed up. The tachometer stopped bouncing. Things just started working A LOT better.
We called Circus Circus and asked if they still had the spot and yes they did. They were very nice and would have only charged us the $10 cancellation fee instead of the full one night charge but they seemed as happy as us that we would make it in time for New Years Eve, or at least part of it, lol. We made it to Vegas at about 11:00 pm and got things hooked and even made the bed. Sat down for a few mins while we caught our breathe and then walked outside the MH to see some of the fireworks. Since Circus Circus is so close to the strip we walked down and looked around before heading back to catch some sleep.
We had picked up a mattress heater pad to help keep us warm while at night. That worked well. We got a “little” space heater which did not work all that well. That will be going back to the store and we may pick up something bigger. We found out that while we can now get a spark for the stove that something is blocking the propane so off that went till we figure that out. We had brought all kinds of food to cook to save money but not this time, lol. Vegas is very expensive for food. No we did not run the fridge on propane at all so did not have it on until trying the stove. A place that has $5 foot longs are not $5 in Vegas they are closer to $10. Cheeseburgers START at $12 and we really did not want to know the most expensive. All you can eat places don't work for us since we don't eat enough to pay for it. I can tell you that the stove will get fixed ASAP thou. We only had about 1 ½ days in Vegas so we did not worry about fixing it while there.
We also found out that if you are plugged into “shore power” that the dashboard gauges don't work but as soon as you unplug they come right on. We found out that if I make a “tent” on the couch that Gascap can crawl into anytime a noise scares him. He has started to now walk around somewhat and will even lay on the front area to look out the window and even take a nap there. He has become very comfortable now in the MH. We found out that small things can stop things from working right. We are pretty sure now that we have fixed most, if not all, the electrical problems. The doorbell just needed 4 D cell batteries and now it works. We have found that the kitchen lights only have one switch them on and off and that switch is located right when you walk in the coach not in the kitchen where you think it might (or should) be. While the hall, LR and BR lights all have multiple switches to turn them on and off. We found out that things are frozen will still be frozen at least 6 hrs in the freezer part of the fridge without it being turned on.
We woke up on the first and after we found out the stove would not work we took showers in the CG showers. Ours are not fully cleaned yet from buying the MH so until I clean and disinfect it we don't want to use it. It will be done soon thou. We went to go and get some food for brunch and that's when we found out food prices in Vegas are on the high side. I guess it's a good thing we don't eat all that much :) even when we go out here we end up taking half or more home to eat another day. We then got a $7 bus pass, that allowed us to ride the buses for 24 hrs. You could get a 2 hr pass for $5 or a 3 day pass for $20. We took the bus and got off at the Treasure Island area and walked and stayed for the 5:30 showing of the “Sirens of TI”. Since Thom and I have performed as pirates and did a lot of festivals all up and down the coast of FL I am not sure that we can give an objective look at the show. It was very entertaining and that's all I will say, lol. One amusing thing is that Thom and I did not do any gambling. We just did not have the time to think about it. We will be back and next time we will have the stove fixed and we will do some gambling. We did take some pictures and I will see about posting them soon, including ones of Gascap and where he has chosen to now spend the time traveling in the MH.